Golden years plan

Thursday

Jan 16, 2014 at 11:09 AM

Getting older is hard but it beats the alternative, as far as I’m concerned. Nobody really wants to get old. I know I sure don’t, but I’m about there according to my birth year and sagging body parts. My mind, however, still has me convinced I’m 18.

Getting older is hard but it beats the alternative, as far as I’m concerned. Nobody really wants to get old. I know I sure don’t, but I’m about there according to my birth year and sagging body parts. My mind, however, still has me convinced I’m 18.

I’ve been wondering lately how I and others in or near my generation will spend our "golden years." Since I have no offspring or siblings to lean on, it looks like, if I’m lucky, I’ll be residing in a retirement home. I have to admit, thinking about how it could be makes me grin.

There will be a daily battle over the music. I and my fellow classic rockers will be sabotaging the classic country crowd and vice versa. It’s a good bet that they’ll end up separating us because of the deafening clash of sound coming from Aerosmith, Fog Hat and the Eagles mixed with Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn and Kenny Rogers.

My generation likes our hot rod cars and trucks, so we’ll need something for our speed fix. There’s got to be a way to mount a 454 engine onto a wheelchair. (Of course, I plan to have my own hot rod hover craft by then.). We’ll be having races down the hallways and setting up ramps to jump. Safety concerns? Oh, please! We’re 100 years old, pretending we’re Evel Knieval or driving Big Foot and having fun!

Lots of us, me included, have tattoos. By the time we hit the home, most of our ink will be located way south of where it originally was, but that won’t phase us. I can already see some interesting trouble brewing over the "I’ll show you mine if you show me yours" tattoo comparisons.

Food and drinks will be another critical area. If they don’t want an all-out coup, there better be fast-food joints located inside the home, along with an ice cream parlor, pizza place, snow cones, a barbecue stand and an adult beverage bar for those who’d like a nip or two, especially before the big race.

Among other retirement home musts will be computers with Internet service, extra-large, flat-screen TVs, free access to ALL the movies and television shows from about 1960 on, stocked fishing pond and a pool. We’ll also need a fully-stocked, 24-hour, discount store on premises.

You know. The more I think about it, the more I’m liking the sound of this golden years thing, just not any time soon.